True tales over 50

The flood anniversary, one year on

Waking up to floodwaters surrounding my house in Australia #flood #cycloneDebbie #anniversary #memories

This exact time last year, here was my morning view from the front verandah at 7am. My son’s room below the house was underwater up to my thighs. His friend’s motorbike was almost floating, and my neighbour’s cars had water up to their steering wheels.

It was a challenging, stressful time, as you can imagine, including several deaths, and I wrote about it here with many more photos in Soggy not Bloggy.

It took 3 days for the waters to subside, and miraculously, we only lost electricity for a few hours. Which was great, because I had two teenage boys marooned in the living room with me; we would have likely killed each other without the internet for distraction.

Or the toaster of course, for ongoing food requirements (I had waded to the supermarket with water over the top of my gumboots to bring back milk and bread).

Today, the nearby town of Lismore- which was devastated by over 11 metres of water literally rushing thorough the CBD– is having a community gathering and celebration of Resilience, organised by the local Council. What a fantastic, morale-building exercise! So many businesses struggled, as flood insurance is incredibly expensive, and many didn’t survive the task of re-building. Some of my friends were evacuated at midnight as the waters stormed the river levee bank, and one woman I know is still not back in her house- the engineer says it needs another 6 months to dry out and complete repairs…

Holy crap! That must’ve been super stressful and distressing. I live in a town prone to flooding, but over the years infrastructure has lessened the likelihood of homes and businesses being affected. I know it’s a long haul to recovery. There’s some irony in the surfboard bobbing in the bottom of your son’s bedroom photo. How sad to learn that people died and some lost their livelihoods.

That is all so shocking for those of us who do not live in flood-prone areas. I remember those floods well – all through QLD too. Very frightening and hard to think you could ever dry your house out after that deluge!